Unleash the power of Creative Book Builder (2): Powerful and flexible widget

We all know that interactive content is very important for ebooks. It helps people better understand the content and feel more interesting. CBB supports a lot of powerful and flexible widget to make your content more interactive.

Read Aloud
For any read aloud books (fixed layout only), iBooks can play audio and highlight the word at the same time. It can turn the page automatically. CBB allows you to add read aloud features to your book easier by taking 3 simple steps: add text, record audio, and finally mix text with audio.

Quiz & Question
CBB supports multiple choice questions. Quiz can contain a set of questions. Each question and answer can contain text and image. The readers choose their answer, and then they check if it is correct or not. It is useful for them to revise the content they have read before.

Slideshow
Slideshow can contain a set of slides. Each slide can contain image and audio. When you play slideshow, audio will be played at the same time for each slide. You can even record your voice for story telling purpose.

Chart
Sometimes, you may need a simple chart to illustrate the figures for convincing or reporting purpose. CBB supports bar chart, line chart, pie chart, etc. You can input the data and customize the look and feel of the charts.

Equations (LaTeX)
If you know LaTeX syntax, you will find that it is one of great feature to input mathematical formula or equations to build math or science book easier.

Table, Drawing & QR Code
You can present summary and figures as table format. You can draw using finger. You can insert QR Code that represents any link.

Not enough ? We will continue to explore and add more widgets. Stay tuned.

You can also submit your request to our support anytime.

Unleash the power of Creative Book Builder (1): Different types of books

CBB allows you to create different types of books in terms of layout, page turning, and even vertical text.

There are 5 types of layout: Classic (Reflowable), Fixed Layout, Landscape, Portrait and Square. Classic book can adapt its presentation to output device. Elements in Classic books are displayed linearly. Other types of books have fixed size. Elements in other types of books are displayed at the fixed position. You can convert Fixed Layout books into Classic books by using Copy To function.

There are 4 types of direction: Left-to-right, Right-to-left, Vertical Text with Left-to-right, Vertical Text with Right-to-left. Most of the books with English language's text are using Left-to-right direction. The traditional books with Chinese and Japanese language are usually using Vertical Text with Right-to-left direction. You can change direction by the following steps:

1. Open book
2. Tap Settings icon at the bottom toolbar
3. Tap Book Style
4. Tap Direction

Also, in the book generation interface, you can use older EPUB version, i.e. 2.0 for older EPUB readers. Some EPUB readers do not support separate CSS file. In this case, you can enable Inline Stylesheet.

By default, all the books are opened to spread two pages when you are using iBooks to view book. When you view Landscape book, you need to scroll the page horizontally until you see another page because the screen is not enough to display two pages in this case. We are aware of this and we add an option called "Open to Spread" in book generation interface. You just turn it off. Then only one page will be shown to fit the screen. You can swipe left or right to turn the page.

Display Width of Image

Previously, the width of image in terms of HTML image tag <img> is 100%. It is not flexible enough to display on the page, especially on Classic Book.

From version 3.2, CBB introduces the display width option for image. The display width can be changed to any value in terms of percentage or pixel. The display height will be adapted to maintain aspect ratio. As a result, the image is not too large or too wide to take up the whole screen. No matter the actual size of image is, the image will be displayed using display size if it is specified.

Version 3.2 Highlights

Evernote, WordPress, Blogger, RSS/Atom Feed Support

For those who have already great content on Evernote, WordPress, Blogger, or other blogging platform, CBB makes use of that content to create your own book easier now.

1. Tap Import button (down arrow)
2. Select Evernote, Blogger, WordPress, or RSS/Atom Feed
3. Type the required information
4. Tap Start Import button

Better support for Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawing

There is a specific item called "Google Documents" in Import and Add Element popover screen. It will download the specified Google Documents from your Google Drive account.

CBB extracts text from Google Docs and turn it to paragraph, turns each slides of Google Slides presentation into images, turns spreadsheets of Google Sheets into images, turns drawing in Google Drawing into images as well. It separates the function from "Files From Google Drive" which treats presentation and spreadsheet as embedded files.

Edit cover image and book information without leaving publish screen

Previously, in publish screen, if you found that some information is missing or want to modify cover image, you need to close publish screen, editing and then tap Publish button again to generate the book.

Now you do not need to close publish screen, you can change book information by tapping book title and description, and change cover image by tapping cover image's thumbnail directly.

Creative Book Builder v3.2

New features:

1. Import posts from Evernote

2. Import posts from Blogger

3. Import posts from WordPress

4. Import content from RSS feed

5. Convert PDF to slideshow

6. Thumbnail view for books

7. Thumbnail view for pages

8. Copy and paste pages (tap and hold)

9. Access shared folder of Google Drive

10. Set display width of image

11. Edit cover image and book information without leaving publish screen

12. Better support for Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawing

13. Revamp Add Element Interface

14. Support online image

Issues about Google Drive

When you upload documents to Google Drive, it will be converted to Google Docs editor format automatically. When CBB downloads those files from Google Drive via API, it may not return original files and CBB may get the empty files. It causes unexpected result.

You are recommended to disable conversion when upload, especially PDF files. You can refer to https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2424101?hl=en to change upload settings.

Creative Book Builder v3.1.1

New Features:

1. Import web app from Google Drive's folder

2. Scan QR Code to import EPUB, PDF, image or web app

3. Bug fix